ONE day back in the 1940s, a 10-year-old boy, on a remote dairy farm behind Kempsey, dreamed of becoming a country music singer.
That same boy DAVID GORDON KIRKPATRICK, otherwise known as SLIM DUSTY, will perform next Wednesday, August 16, at the Newcastle Workers Club, and Thursday, August 17, at Maitland City Bowling Club.
Slim didn't let his dream blow away with the spinifex that day. In fact he set about writing his very first song, THE WAY THE COWBOY DIES. The following year he began calling himself Slim Dusty, and by the time he was 15 he had gate-crashed the local radio station, 2KY KEMPSEY, to record two songs at his own expense.
Those songs were SONG FOR THE AUSSIES and MY FINAL SONG, but that song was not to be Slim's final song by a long shot.
As everybody knows, Slim career's took him to the pinnacle of Australian country music. In fact Slim has almost single-handedly paved the way for two or three generations of country artists.
This year he has released album number 100, LOOKING FORWARD AND LOOKING BACK, which he describes as 'songs about real Australians'.
'I have to be fair dinkum with my audience,' he says.
'I can't see any other way of doing it. You have to believe in what you are singing about.'
Slim has managed to keep in touch with his audience throughout the years by holding onto his earliest visions of writing and singing about the bush.
He tries to make the audience feel like they are one of his mates and his songs 'just as good as a yarn you might hear from a mate at the pub, around a campfire in the bush or at a backyard barbie'. TE
|
